The Final Day
“How long d’ya think we’ll hold out in here? 2, 3 hours?” A large, black figure said, crouching as it held its SR in its hands. This figure was a Spartan III, clad in SPI armor, seemingly dent and scarred in multiple places. Next to him stood another Spartan, this one with a M41 SPNKR slung across their back, and an M6D in her hands. “I’m hoping for five.” Unlike the first Spartan, this one was female, the only real noticeable way to tell was her voice. She was Aylla-G021, and beside her was Mike-G006. They were on top of a small building together, crouched as they waited for their prey to spring the trap. The building was at the end of a long road in the city, and while it wasn’t immediately obvious, the road was rigged, crawling with Soldiers, Spartans, and a few dozen explosives. In truth, they weren’t the first trap the enemy had fallen for. For one, they had been deluded into engaging in urban combat here on Titan, all for some nonexistent artifact or goal created by an ONI agent, who is now probably drinking his coffee and laughing maniacally as he successfully delayed a Covenant fleet’s advance onto Earth. Assuming there was still an Earth anyways. They were but two members of Estoc squad, one of the many Gamma Company squads operating throughout the colonies. Today, they would make sure that the covies regretted ever falling for a stupid trap, and hopefully make them drown in their own blood. “I doubt it Aylla, we’d run out of ammo by that point no?” Mike pointed out, in his typical fashion. He was always the one doubting everything, often taking the worst case scenario as the most likely one. However, he was generally one of the more well adjusted members of Estoc, if a bit unimaginative. “Well, you aren’t afraid of stabbing some alien bastards are you Mike?” Aylla replied. In contrast to Mike, Aylla was without a doubt the optimist, albeit a very violent, mildly unhinged optimist who was comfortable knowing that she’d die before she reached the age of 18. “Anyways, don’t worry, we’ll take at least a hundred covies, that’s a good enough way to die don’t you think?.” She added. “Reassuring.” He added in a sarcastic quip, before spotting something on his scope. It was a Warthog, the one sent in to make sure their enemies knew where the party was starting. Surprisingly, both soldiers riding it had survived, and from the sound of it, it looks like they brought quite the crowd. “Estoc, we have multiple Bravo Kilo’s inbound, company sized, lotsa little bastards covering them, strangely no Phantom support.” Both Aylla and Mike overheard it through their comms, the voice belonging to the Sarge on board the Warthog. “Hear that Mikey, looks like we’re gonna kill us some Kongs.” Aylla bemusedly spoke, a seemingly wild, twisted expression hidden by her helmet. “Strange, usually Gators are the ones going after this sorta stuff. . .” Mike pointed out. It was true, throughout most searches for holy relics, Elites generally tended to be the ones seeking out artifacts, what with their special operations troops. “Yeah, I hear the gators and the Kongs are killing eachother these days, not sure if that’s true or n-” “Topshot, Shorty, you two ready up there.” Another voice rang through their comms. It was none other than their commander, Steven (or fuckface, as Aylla called him). “Yeah, I’ve got the explosives, Topshit here’s got his sniper rifle, how bout you guys?” Aylla said, ignoring her now overly common nickname of ‘Shorty’, one she had grown to dislike. Truth be told, she wasn’t even that short, there were other SIII’s out there that were even shorter, not that this stopped her squad from referring to her as such. “We’re in position, Covies are going to be coming in soon, give or take twenty minutes.” Steven said in response,both Mike and Aylla nodding at the news. “The moment I give the signal, you two do what you do best, copy?” “We copy Steven, out.” Aylla replied, a mild sense of irritation coming from her voice, but that was promptly ignored, especially once the rumbling made itself clear. Noone was sure whether it was some sort of vehicle, or the feet of thousands of brutes marching towards them, but whatever it was, it was loud, made the ground shake, and would have most assuredly spelt the end of any other unit (for that matter, it would spell the end for them, not that they cared.) It was here that a sudden silence struck both Mike and Aylla, as they got into position, waiting for their hated foes to arrive, for the unending horde of Covenant savages to arrive and bring down their hammers upon them. Sure enough, they arrived. At first, a half dozen choppers screamed into the deserted roads, seemingly appearing from one of the two forks along its end, driving just toward Aylla’s trap. “No, no, bastards are going to trip the fucking thing before it’s time. . .” Aylla began to think to herself, realizing that if they spring the trap themselves, they might as well kiss their ass goodbye to any surprise attack on the actual horde. Thankfully enough, it seemed something had stopped the Brutes, thankfully not the explosives, as they stopped right in their tracks, seemingly waiting for the rest of their force. Sure enough, a massive force came forward, first a Wraith, the big, hovering behemoth ponderously moving through some of the debris. Estoc and company didn’t know it, but they were waiting for their Cheiftain to arrive, seemingly so that he would get the glory of discovering a holy relic. Behind this Wraith was approximately a few squads of brutes, most of them covered in a new, decorative armor, ranging in color and ornateness. It didn’t take too long to see who was running this group, as a large brute, even for his species, led them, his black and orange armor and large hammer giving him away. As far as Shaksha squad was concerned, he might as well have painted ‘Shoot me’ all over himself, of course, they were going to do a little more than shoot him. “Hurry, we must reach that icon for the glory of the Prophets!” He shouted at his men as he marched through the streets. To his troops, he was an inspiring leader, one to be followed, and most assuredly feared. To Team Estoc, he was an idiot blindly marching into a trap and taking his men with him. “Come on you fuck, just get a little closer and. . .” In Aylla’s hand was a small, cylindrical item, with a bright red button on top. It was clear what she intended to do with it, being the team’s explosive ‘specialist’. “We shall conquer this world for the glory of the Prophets! Let all who dare stand against us be crushed and decimated, let the Humans bu-” It was at that moment that everyone in the area felt as if time had stopped for just a second. It was the last second in which the fragile peace that all parties in a conflict held dear had been shattered, soon to be replaced with chaos. Much to the Chieftain’s surprise, he and his men found themselves in the middle of a massive array of explosives, be it mines, grenades, rockets, and even a few IED’s made by Aylla herself. Almost all of them detonated just as she had intended, ripping through the Jiralhanae lines with a reckless abandon only known by explosives and shrapnel. Dozens upon dozens of brutes now lay dead in the road below, most barely recognizable as much more than a disgusting mess of charred flesh. They were the fortunate ones, the unfortunate ones being those who had the bad luck of surviving the explosives, almost all of them screaming in an agonizing pain, a few repenting for some long committed sins in their alien tongue, and others screaming out for their family members. The attack was followed by a few moments of silence, as the rest of the pack went to come to their surviving allies aid. However, this aid was cut short once 12.7mm and 7.62mm fire began to ring out from the various building surrounding the road, ripping any brute in the vicinity to shreds. The survivors began to spread out, attempting to find cover, mostly rocks and rubble. Before too long, plasma and needle fire began to rain back, mostly scattered and poorly aimed. Their plan had worked it seemed, as they had almost entirely routed the first Jiralhanae force sent towards them, or at least what was left of them by this point. The only real problem left to deal with was the Wraith, having survived most of the explosives hurled at it, as its point defense weapons and gunner both began to fire wildly at anything that looked like a threat. Aylla and Mike quickly began their work. Mike started off by positioning himself and aiming his sniper rifle, one of the older SRS variants, at the gunner. Mike simply stood upright from the top of the building, taking mere seconds to complete his part of the plan. Despite its slightly aged appearance, it was still good enough, and deadly enough, to not be treated lightly, as the sudden, nearly instantaneous 14.5 x 114mm sabot round had suddenly fled from its barrel proved. Almost as soon as it fled, it struck the brute gunner’s face, eviscerating both skull and brain and leaving little more than a bloody mess, as the gunner’s hands lay on the Wraith’s plasma projector’s trigger, firing endlessly. “Your turn Powderhead,” Mike said, immediately putting his head down, before any returning fire could come bearing down on him. Aylla’s job was slightly trickier, though she had the benefit of at least having several helping hands. Aylla did as Mike did, on her shoulder laying a M41 rocket launcher. It was quite heavy, and even in her SPI armor perhaps too large for her, however it certainly didn’t feel so to her, the result of several extensive augmentations to her strength. As a result, she raised it quickly and pointed it at her target, the Wraith. Before she could fire, however, a disturbing surge of blue, chaotic energy formed in its barrel, and it was pointed right at her and Mike. She had to be quick, lest that cannon fire its wicked armament at them. Thus, using both the computation of her 'new' Mark VB suit, as well as the rocket's own guidance computer, she rapidly locked on to the Wraith, allowing her to quickly fire off a shot, flames spouting out of both sides of the launcher, and go back into the relative safety of the building's concrete cover, watching as her rocket, followed by two others, made their way to their target, striking it with a relentless fury. The first rocket killed the remaining crew member of the Wraith, the remaining two critically damaged it, causing it to implode upon itself in an orgy of blue and purple flames. "Nice shooting Ay, how long till the next group comes by any chance?" Mike asked her, scanning, and eliminating at least one surviving Brute in the road below, ripping his arm off with a single round, leaving him dead if lucky, in shock and bleeding profusely if not. Before his companion could ask however, it seemed his answer would be granted by several dozen more brutes and grunts, armed haphazardly but still well enough, now entering the kill zone established previously. They would immediately fall right into even more righteous 12.7mm fire, as the dozen or so machine guns in particular viciously ripping into the Covenant lines, immediately bringing the grunts into a panic, at least for those that lived long enough to register fear. And yet, it seemed, with every brute killed, another two would enter the fray, unending and unwilling to end their attack on the human forces. Another Wraith, an AA variant, entered the fray as well, supported by at least one chieftain and several infantry, and almost immediately bringing its armament to bear. It fired at the buildings that had caused its allies grief with reckless abandon, immediately bringing about the vaporization of at least several infantry and machine guns, causing several more to immediately seek shelter further within the buildings, a few abandoning their machine guns as a result. This allowed several more Brutes to begin entering mostly unintruded, seemingly turning the tide. Mike and Aylla themselves looked down at the wraith, already readying to take it down. “Alright, come here you son of a-” Aylla’s shields flickered vibrantly for a moment, immediately causing Aylla and Mike to seek cover behind the concrete sides of the building, jutting out to protect any unfortunate soul from falling to their deaths. “Fuck. . . did you see him?” Aylla immediately asked Mike, who had simply aimed his sniper rifle from behind cover, taking advantage of the rifle’s smart linked scope to fire off a shot from the relative safety of the cover. “He’s down, let’s gut that Wraith before it turns its guns on us.” Before too long, Aylla immediately rose up again, rocket launcher still in hand, now quickly aimed at the Wraith. Another spout of flames left the barrel, and out came the rocket, streaking towards its prey. ((TBC))